


Nuisance

by woodspurge



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Red Lyrium, red lyrium body horror to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 14:14:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3899323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodspurge/pseuds/woodspurge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dagna has to put up with an amazing amount of shit, but Samson is the last straw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nuisance

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably add a rating and more tags as this progresses.

"Do I really have to stay down here? I don't have the privacy to so much as to take a piss without being watched." Samson called up from the single cell below the metal grating in the undercroft.

 

Dagna bent over her work bench carefully chiseling away at the ex-general's armor. Even though it hadn't been on a man or in sunlight for days, she could feel its warmth through her gloves, as if it were  _alive._ She reminded herself that it technically was. "It's so we can study you without having to march you up and down stairs and through the great hall. You think the Inquisitor wants guests seeing your filthy face?" Dagna called back to the prisoner cheerfully. "You can piss when I leave to sleep." In reality, they were keeping Samson in that cell for observation. Essentially, to watch his slow decent into lyrium withdrawal and make sure he didn't die on them. Leliana still had many questions to ask and Dagna had information to be extracted regarding his resistance to the red stuff.

 

"Well don't say I didn't warn yeh," the gravely voice responded.

 

Dagna hummed loudly and hammered harder to cover unpleasant noises. The constant frigid wind whipping in from the waterfall washed away any fowl odors at least. When the dwarf enthusiastically agreed to study the man and his armor, this wasn't what she expected. However, she'd do far worse for the Inquisitor, given the respect she had for the figurehead, along with the how much Dagna was paid (quite a bit). 

 

Once Samson seemed to be done with his business, Dagna chimed, "Harritt, can you lower the ladder? I need to have a look at him."

 

The blacksmith uncrossed his burly arms with a grunt and stomped over to the grating with a small ladder under his arm, only as tall as the depth of the cell. Originally, there was a guard that did this, but Dagna had told him he wasn't needed. The guard now stood outside the door instead of peering over her shoulder like a vulture. Harritt, however, was even less thrilled with the situation than Dagna, given that it wasn't his subject of study, only another nuisance to put up with while trying to do his work. Harritt opened a small trapdoor on the grating before lowering the ladder down into the cell. Samson awkwardly climbed it with his wrists still in shackles, so Harritt assisted the man on the last few rungs. 

 

The dwarf pulled out a little stool for Samson to seat himself. It was Dagna's stool, so the grown man awkwardly lowered himself to the chair of child proportions. "How are you feeling today?" Dagna asked while trying to press in a note of compassion. It was hard, given the kind of man she was looking at.

 

Samson only sneered at her with a weary look of disdain.

 

"Alrighty then, well let me just has a look at your eyes." Persisting in her upbeat demeanor, Dagna traded her rough leather gloves for lighter ones. She still refused to touch his skin directly; it perturbed her just to be in this close of proximity with the slimy, sickly man. She knew that simply touching the raw red lyrium could lead to infection, but she didn't yet understand how this did or didn't apply to the man seated before her.

 

He stayed still, thankfully, when she examined his face. Her fingers traced over veins surfacing on the sallow skin and liver spots prematurely freckling his sunken cheeks. She moved to his eyes, gently peeling back the lids. They were as red as ever, beyond bloodshot, as if he had busted blood vessels. But she knew it was the lyrium and wondered what else lurked beneath his skin.

 

Suddenly Samson went rigid under her touch, so she withdrew, thinking she had hurt the man.

 

But his eyes shut tight and the shackles clinked as he tried to move a hand to his mouth and failed to suppress a cough. Samson hacked right into Dagna's face with a horse choke and flecks of red hit her cheeks. She stood there, shocked for a moment before putting a finger to the wetness she felt and withdrawing in horror to find a red tinge on her glove. Was it blood? Red lyrium? Both?

 

Dagna didn't ponder long, only ran away from the man to the waterfall. She clambered to the edge, grabbed a stalactite to anchor herself, and pressed her face towards the waterfall as much as she could bare. The spray dowsed her visage clean as it had cooled burnt flesh on previous occasions. Only when her skin stopped crawling did Dagna return, hair wet and armor beaded with water. Harritt had grabbed the ex-general by his greasy hair and stuffed him back down the hole from whence he came. The blacksmith handed the archanist a towel to dry herself and once the dwarf did, she draped it around her neck and walked back over to the grate.

 

Dagna peered down at the man curled in the corner while addressing Harritt. "You don't need to be rough with him. He's just… sick." She felt bad about her reaction now, and worried for the man down below, indecisive as whether she should pull him back out of the pit for further examination or leave him in peace for the time being.

 

From the shady corner, red eyes glared back up at her.


End file.
